This one's been sitting on my HD for a while now, and I've finally decided to see if it's sellable. It started out as a chunk of worldbuilding, so it's kinda experimental. It's only a "short short" (about 500 wds), and I've yet to do any revision:

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The universe is a curious place. Since the First Birth, we have been studying it. Exploring it. ‘Questing and questioning,' as the legends say. We used to be explorers, did you know that? Millennia upon millennia ago, 19'683 brave bittarii set out from our homeworld to look. To learn. To grow into something more. We went with joy in our minds and friendship in our words.

It was our first mistake. We've learned since then. We've learned the truth, and I defy even the norak to disprove it. We know the meaning of life.

Life is about survival. Beyond that, there is only illusion.

You see, our philosophy is about purity –Perfection. In order to survive, and to thrive, a creature must eliminate all other life forms except those with which it maintains a symbiotic relationship. To thrive, a being must have no competition. It must have a surplus of resources.

Species, even civilized species, are the same as individuals. They need to eliminate competition, and they need to consume resources. They also need constant struggle, to weed out the unfit, those who would make the species soft and risk the survival of the whole.

Survival isn't a right. It's a privilege that all life forms must struggle for every day. Just like love, and justice, and friendship. There must be challenge or none of it matters!

The strong will survive. It's simple fact, there's nothing anyone can do to change it. It is the irrevocable nature of all species. The weak will be eliminated. It is their nature. If they are not eliminated, if they prove capable of defying the universe's inexorable wrath, then they are not weak. The weak must be eliminated for the universe to be in balance, to be pure.

I'm not foolish enough to think that we bittarii will ultimately prove strongest. That's not our intent. We're fully confident that, someday, we will be exterminated. Such is life! Whatever wipes us out will continue the battle until it is wiped out by something more powerful, something more Perfect.

In the end, only one civilization will remain. The single most Perfect form in the entire universe, in all of history. Then the universe will be truly pure, and darkness and pain will be gone forever so that the victors may achieve true peace. Theirs will be a world of love, and beauty, and pleasures both of flesh and spirit –the first such world to ever exist, in any continuum.

We are not monsters. We are not demons, or gods, but something far, far more powerful. We are life, and we are hope. We are the life that exists in defiance of fate, the life that embraces challenge and strength. We do not hope to kill you, but to strengthen you. If you would be worthy of this great gift that the Universe has bestowed, then fight us! For every member sacrificed on the altar of evolution, the Universe itself grows stronger, and we all become closer to our own divinity. We are the larval form of God, and the godhead is the destiny of whomever chooses to claim it.

Can you honestly tell me that this isn't the point of life?

–Kalnorak, Bittarii Elder, in his statement to the Galactic Alliance, after being captured in 18'729 AY (Earth-year: 232 CE)
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